Rescue workers are searching for as many as 25 people who could be trapped under rubble after a fire at a shopping center in the Russian city of Kazan.

Officials said five people were confirmed dead and 55, including two police officers and two rescue team members were seriously injured after the fire raced through the Admiral shopping complex in Kazan, capital of the Tatarstan region, on March 11.

A spokesman for Tajikistan's Labor and Migration Board in Russia, Ibrohim Ahmadov, told RFE/RL on March 12 that the five dead victims were Tajik citizens.

An RFE/RL correspondent at the scene said part of the three-story complex had collapsed.

A colonel of the Russian Emergency Ministry was reportedly among missing.

Authorities said some merchants reportedly rushed back into the complex to try to save their merchandise after the fire broke out.